This is the story of Cameroon where stagnating enrolment rates of 5-year-olds has hidden the fact that more children are enrolling in pre-primary school rather than enrolling early in primary school , marking small gains in the bid to give children the early foundations they need to succeed.

The 2026 GEM Report includes Cameroon’s story among 35 case studies chosen to illustrate a central argument: that educational progress is context-specific, that no single policy is sufficient on its own, and that what works is rarely universal.

What do the data say about pre-primary enrolment?

In Cameroon, 41% of 5‑year‑olds are enrolled in education, well above the subregional average for Central Africa, but below the averages for lower‑middle‑income and sub‑Saharan African countries. After a period of expansion, as this chart shows, participation of 5-year-olds has stagnated since 2016. Why?

The number of 5‑year‑olds enrolled in education has remained stagnant since 2017, but unpacking the data indicates a slightly different picture. Historically, Cameroon had many 5-year-olds enrolled in primary school early because, as the testimony below shows, there is a lack of preschools for them to access and because often the only ones nearby are private, with prohibitive costs.

Looking deeper at the data, however, we found that, if the overall share of those aged 5-years participating had stagnated, the share of them enrolling in pre‑primary education (instead of starting primary school early) grew from 52% in 2017 to 68% in 2024 (the orange part of the bars in the figure). Ultimately, this means that more are accessing pre-primary education, which has many benefits for long term progression and for societal outcomes.

There remain significant mountains to climb, however, to shift its overall stagnation rates, as this headteacher’s story tells:

At my school, we face a difficult reality: the massive influx of 4- or 5-year-olds directly into first grade. Why don’t these little ones go through preschool? The answer is simple. In Cameroon, there are two worlds: private and public. In the private sector, costs are set according to the founder’s wishes. Primary school is supposedly free in the public sector, although we ask for around 7,000 CFA francs for PTA fees to buy things like chalk and toilet paper, because the government doesn’t provide us with anything. Within a 6 km radius of my school, there are eight private preschools, but none in the public sector.

For parents, when their child turns 4 years old, parents want to put the child in school so they can go to work. If we refuse to take in these children, they are exposed to serious risks. In rural areas, I’ve seen children sitting in front of closed doors as early as 6:00 am, starving, because their parents have gone to the fields. We accept these children so they aren’t alone on the streets, but it’s a constant struggle.

This situation is disastrous for learning. We’re forcing their memory before its time. If you force me to walk before I’m old enough, I’ll have bowlegs. If you ask my memory to do what it can’t do, it will shut down. The child draws on their cognitive reserves to try and keep up with older children, which leads to excessive fatigue and discouragement. Often, I deliberately have them repeat two or three years in the same grade so they reach the necessary maturity, but the child ends up believing they have failed. The number of public preschools must increase. The government is neglecting our children; there are schools that exist only on paper or in models inaugurated even though no buildings have been constructed.

What are the primary challenges to scaling up pre-primary education in Cameroon?

Multiple challenges have hit the education system in Cameroon in the SDG era. This has included persistent security crises over the past 10 years, mainly due to the escalation of Boko Haram violence in the far north since 2014, and the conflict in the anglophone Northwest and Southwest regions since 2016 (see figure below).

Moreover, an influx of refugees from the Central African Republic has affected the East and Adamawa regions. Chronic internal displacement, a ban on education by non‑state armed groups, attacks on school buildings and personnel, and the looting and occupying of school buildings contribute to widespread education disruption.

Chronic underinvestment has dug the challenges deeper. If 0.10% of GDP to pre‑primary education in Cameroon felt low in 2008, it dropped even further to 0.06% in 2014, where it has remained ever since. One reflection of this dwindling pot is the fact that the number of public pre‑primary schools has barely changed since 2014, while nearly 20% of them were not operational in 2022. Barely any public preschool has a canteen, only 13% have equipped playgrounds, 16% have electricity and 63% have toilets. As Nahadzou, the headteacher we spoke to above said, this has led to a fast expansion of private schools to fill the gap. If public school infrastructure stood still, in contrast, between 2017 and 2023, the number of private preschools increased by 47% and the share of students enrolled in private preschools increased from 62% to 73%.

Private providers are mostly concentrated in urban areas, which account for 70% of pre‑primary students, exacerbating the gap in access. in fact, the number of operational preschools was almost 10% higher in urban than in rural areas in 2015 but over 40% in 2022, which no doubt contributes to the steady stream of 5-year olds Nahadzou is still receiving in her primary school.

Fixing the imbalance

Over the past two decades, Cameroon’s government has established several frameworks to improve pre-primary access. Pre-primary is now officially integrated into the formal education structure for children aged 4 and 5, and the government aims to enrol 715,000 children in pre‑primary education by 2027, although at current rates it will fall short by some 60,000 children.

Meanwhile, to address the lack of access in rural areas, the government is focusing on community‑based preschools managed by local authorities and communities with municipal financial support. However, this strategy has faced significant implementation challenges. As of 2022, only 4% of children were enrolled in community preschools, far short of its 64% target by 2025/26.

Cameroon’s story counts a lot. Unpacking the data showed that participation may have decreased between 2017 and 2024, but the share of those enrolled attending pre‑primary education increased. This means that, counterintuitively, early childhood education expanded overall, and the policies and efforts the country are making should be continued and scaled up.